


Orange glow of a[n artificial] shower.

by starrelia



Series: Colours [4]
Category: Borderlands
Genre: Alternate Universe, Bisexual Male Character, Cisgender, M/M, Memory Alteration, Mentions of past abuse, memory problems
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-11
Updated: 2016-07-11
Packaged: 2018-07-23 00:00:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,705
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7458718
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starrelia/pseuds/starrelia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jack misses the rain on the home planet that he doesn’t even remember anymore.</p><p>Even if it holds only a wretched past for him, it’s still home – because of the rain, because of the orange; just like how Helios is[n’t] home.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Orange glow of a[n artificial] shower.

Jack doesn’t miss a lot of things from his original planet; it’s blown to pieces now, anyway, something to do with a company going too far and stripping his home planet dry until it shattered like glass. There isn’t a lot he misses, and Jack regrets that his grandmother has to live until he invades Pandora before she dies at the hands of bandit scum instead of on the blown up planet.

But he does miss the rain.

His home planet is nameless, useless, and has no worth other than the minerals that led to its destruction. Jack sometimes wonders if he can find bits and pieces of it, still, but doubts that with how vast and expansive the universe is.

Yet, he misses the rain. On the occasions that it did rain [only in the summer] his grandmother didn’t do anything to him the entire day and she allows him to sit outside as a result. The downpour on his home planet has – had – always been severe, to the point that Jack remembers how he used to wish that it’d drown him and his grandmother.

The rain that he remembers always surrounded everything around them in a mist, as though the planet is being embraced by a fog that’ll put them all to sleep for the end days.

In the end, it is only rain, and it never did save Jack from his grandmother.

* * *

Eden-2 has rains too, though they’re weaker than the ones from Jack’s home planet and he doesn’t want to take Timothy back to his planet. He thinks he’ll run away – if this is the right Timothy that hates him, that wants him gone, Jack doesn’t know – if he takes him back home, takes him somewhere better than with him.

But still, he’s tempted by it whenever he thinks of the small amount of rain there. Eden-2’s rains always smell sweet, apparently, and they bring on a healing to the planet that no other planet possesses. Perhaps it has something to do with Eridians, something to do with the planet itself, or maybe it’s just such a dry planet that the water is rejuvenating [though the last one, Jack later learns, is inaccurate as hell].

He misses the rain, misses the glow that the rain brings, and misses the smell of wet dirt that always followed.

Jack wants to sit in the rain with Timothy, to bask in the safety they both provide.

“Dad?” Angel calls out – is she crying? Jack stares a bit and, no, no, she’s just tired and hasn’t slept [in years] lately – and Jack looks at her blankly. “Are you okay? What’re you thinking about?” she reaches out with her tattooed hand, and Jack tries not to vomit at the image of it being eaten and torn apart just because Angel is a siren. “You look like you wanna cry.”

“I don’t cry sweetpea,” Jack says, his voice awfully sweet and soft with Angel, even when he thinks that she wants to kill him. “Daddy’s just thinking.”

It’s a shame they’re in space. Has Angel ever seen an actual forest? Eden-7 is a desert wasteland, almost as bad as Pandora. That’s no way for a girl to live. [He’s thinking of the right Eden, this time.] He stares out the many large windows in his suite, stares at the stars and at the blackness that spreads like a plague, and Jack wants to go back home.

Not that Helios isn’t home, but it isn’t bathed in the orange hue that follows the rain of his planet. It’s a glowing, bright yellow, not even gold – no. It’s the colour of the sun and it burns his skin, his eyes, and Jack wants something to soothe the pain.

“Is Timothy coming home—back. Back; is he coming back any time soon, sweet pea?” Jack murmurs, his words stumbling and fumbled, and this isn’t the man he’s supposed to be. “We should go to the uhhh… that damn nature room in that one section of R&D, that’s just a giant room that only has five trees. Only five damn trees. That room.”

Angel arches an eyebrow. “That’s nicknamed the ‘Sleeping Willows’ room, though I’m not entirely sure why.” Her voice is matter of fact when she says that, and she relaxes. “Timmy’s gonna be home in ten minutes.” A smile tugs on her lips, and Jack doesn’t bother to correct her.

Timothy actually likes him. He didn’t wake up this morning to Timothy’s hands on his neck, ready to snap it. He wakes up to an arm draped over him, pressing him against a warm, strong chest, and Jack feels ease instead of fear.

Maybe he thinks he should be scared.

“Tell him we’re going there. Just there. For a little while. Hey, Ange, baby, sweetheart, light of my life and all that; can you check and see if the weather can be controlled in the stupid willows room? Thanks.”

He doesn’t bother explaining himself, and Angel doesn’t push.

 

 

When Timothy comes home, Angel is watching Jack curiously as he stands up, strides over to Timothy and grabs him by the elbow and drags him out. Every part of Jack burns – especially his face, hidden away by the fake, digistructed mask, by something that can’t even be his skin, not at all, not even close – and his body feels terribly hot.

Angel follows after, but Timothy’s stuttering and staring at Jack when he’s dragged away. “What are you _doing?”_ he demands—no, he’s just asking, and Jack _wants_ him to demand, wants him to be indignant so that he can argue and yell and shove away. “Jack—Jack, where are we going? What’s wrong? Did something happen? Did you –” his breath hitches. “—did you have another…?”

“No.” Jack spits out bitterly and Timothy looks over to Angel for something, anything, but she shrugs and follows after them both quietly. “Shut _up._ Everything—everything burns, and we’re going to the sleeping willows. Stupid willows. _Stupid shit.”_ Then, when silence follows, _“_ stop _asking_ me.”

Timothy shuts up, but Jack can feel his concern crawling over him like thousands of cockroaches and he nearly screams.

* * *

This part of R&D is huge. It’s a giant meadow, essentially, with a door that camouflages in barely so that they can still leave. There are only five trees, like Jack has said there are, that are clumped together in the entire place and it’s bright and sunny. There is no wind here, but the trees sway as though there is and Jack stares at the vibrant green, at the clear blue sky, and misses home even more.

[Where is his home anyway? Is it really blown up? Maybe it isn’t. Maybe he wants to blow it up. He’s just as bad as Dahl—but Pandora needs to be saved, and his home planet is dying anyway.]

[Why is he thinking about this?]

 

It’s barren; or it feels that way. Timothy is looking at him curiously still and Jack lets go of his elbow and grabs at his hand instead, intertwines their fingers and squeezes, doesn’t think about the gasp that Timothy lets out, and he drags the other away with him again. Angel quietly follows after and sits down under a tree, and Jack falls down and tugs Timothy down with him.

The sky is clear and sunny, and Jack looks over at Angel and stares at her hand. “Do you— do you think you can make it rain?”

Angel looks around them, inhales sharply and then exhales slowly. “But it’s nice here. It’s warm, and the sky is beautiful and-“

“ _Angel._ Make it _rain.”_ He forces out frantically, and Timothy raises a hand to cup Jack’s cheek and make him look into his eyes. “What?” he barks out, tries to sound threatening, but he only sounds _scared._ No, maybe tired. He’s going to go with tired, and not frightened.

Jack isn’t scared.

He never is.

“You’re raising your voice again.” Timothy says in hushed tones, disappointment not there but Jack pretends it is just so that he feels better about it. The understanding, the sympathy isn’t what he needs but Timothy insists that it is. “Angel,” Timothy says, “please make it rain. We can come down here later without grumpster here and enjoy the sun.”

Before Jack can say anything to that, Timothy cups the back of his head and places it onto his chest and his entire body goes rigid at the sound of the other’s heartbeat.

“Phaseshift.” Angel says, a hum of energy surrounding her and the sky darkens, artificial clouds gathering and lightning strikes. Within a moment, it begins to rain – it falls, downpours, a shower that only serves to make Jack’s scar burn even more and his skin peel, even though it’s water and it’s _just water._ There is no acid, nothing.

It’s just plain water, and yet Jack turns his head slightly to stare up at the grey clouds and he realises that Helios really isn’t home.

The rain filters through the tree’s leaves, drenches them both and the water is warm and cool, falling onto Jack’s face in harsh drops and his entire body slumps. “Oh.” Jack exhales, eyes stinging with both the rain and tears, and he turns back to Timothy and takes in his eerily similar face. “ _Oh.”_ He breathes out, the distress warping his face and Timothy looks at him, lost and worried.

Angel places her hands on Jack’s elbow and shoulder, rubs gently to try and soothe him when she senses his distress, and she’s murmuring but he can’t hear her.

The rain is artificial. There is no orange hue that dances over them; the dirt around them doesn’t smell like nature, and the trees still sway with a gentle wind that isn’t there. It isn’t the harsh downpour that Jack remembers, and it isn’t the welcoming, safe warmth that the rain on his [forgotten] home planet used to give him.

Helios isn’t home. It’s merely _there._

His mind goes blank and he places his head on Timothy’s shoulder, stares down at the grass that doesn’t dampen or darken with the false rain, and thinks about how he misses the Summers of his home.


End file.
